Learning to Love Myself Ch. 02

When we last talked, I was at the point in my narrative where I was fleeing town and a horny naked girl for the far horizon of University life somewhere not close to home. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please go back and read the first part of my tale.

This portion of my story is a bit, shall we say -- involved. So if all you’re looking for is a bit of fluff to masturbate to, you may want to look for something else to get you there. Since, as you know, I’m a big fan of my own sticky fingers, I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you did go for a quick fix elsewhere. However, if you would like to turn your vibrators down low and ride this one out with me, I’d be more than happy to have you along.

The personal relationships in this chapter will appear overdramatized and overcomplicated. If you notice this and think I’m making up stuff or that I’m just a bad storyteller, then I challenge you to remember what you were like when you were nineteen. There now… it’s not so unrealistic is it?

*****

They say that you meet lifelong friends at college. I think we established in our last conversation that I don’t really like other people, so as far as I was concerned that would not happen to me. It turns out I was wrong though, and within my first week at school, I met my best friend. She was a couple of years ahead of me and deep into the business and finance degree programs.

She was warm, congenial, friendly, socially at ease... all those things I was not. She was also popular with the guys (more on that later), but she had terrible luck with them. I swear, she was just too trusting and had no idea about the ulterior motives and shallow personalities that almost every college boy has. Her experiences ended up embittering her quite a bit.

We changed each other a lot, and I’ll be grateful to her forever for that. We really expanded each other’s horizons in some fun and meaningful ways. She’s still my best friend in fact, and I miss her terribly since she moved away. I think she got fed up with life in general and just wanted to start over somewhere else. The last I heard she’d met some fabulous guy, fallen in love, and everything was super. I guess her plan worked.

All this moving away and falling in love stuff happened years after the tale I’m about to tell you though. For this tale we have to go back to the aforementioned flight from town and a horny naked girl for the far horizon of University life somewhere not close to home…

*****

It was my first week on campus. I had moved into my dorm room and decided that it was best for all involved if my roommate and I had as little to do with each other as possible. I’m sure she was a nice enough person, but I didn’t want to trouble myself with finding out. Also having to share a room was really going to put limits my favorite sexual recreation, and I resented that.

I’d found the pool and signed all the waivers to use it, so I wouldn’t have to do without my swimming outlet. I’d also found the school counseling office and gave them Dr. Lester’s information. They would contact her about me and continue my therapy if she thought it was necessary.

I was setting up my familiar things around me as best I could, and everything seemed to be lining up to be bearable if not ideal for the start of my college life. The pivotal event (from your point of view as a reader) occurred when I went to the campus health center to get my birth control pill prescription transferred and refilled. I know, I know… the pills started this whole thing off, didn’t they?

*****

“Hi,” I told the disinterested woman behind the check-in desk, “I’m here to get a birth control prescription transferred and filled.”

“You have to be examined by one of the staff physicians first to establish medical history. Have a seat and fill out these forms. Then we’ll get you into a room,” she responded and tossed a clipboard my way.

Fifteen minutes and one collect phone call from the lobby to Dad to get the insurance information was all it took, and I handed back the forms.

“All right,” she said. “Right through those double doors and left, and it’s the first room all right?”

“On the left?”

“Right.”

Left room right, or right room? Jeez! Who’s on first? I thought as I went though the door. Predictably I went to the first door on the right, and it was the wrong room.

“Whoa! I’m sorry. Wrong room,” I said as I barged in and found the room occupied. I moved to close the door and then stopped and continued to peer around it.

The occupant was a young woman wearing just shorts and bra. She appeared to be quite beautiful, but it was hard to tell too much because she was doubled over, holding her face in her hands, and sobbing. Then I noticed that her left calf was heavily bandaged, and that there was fresh blood spotting on the clean gauze.

“You okay?” I said after a moment.

“No,” she groaned. “It hurts.” Then she lifted her head from her hands and clutched her stomach.

Her tear-streaked face was very beautiful despite her messy look, but what really I noticed when she dropped her hands to her stomach was that she had absolutely enormous breasts. Her bra was doing everything it could just to hold them up. Apart from that she had big brown eyes and long dark hair that fell in ringlets. All in all she was a very pretty young woman even though she was also obviously quite distressed.

“It looks like you got hurt pretty bad,” I said, indicating her leg.

“Yes,” she said and sniffed back more tears, “but it was nothing compared to the rabies shots they just gave me in my stomach.”

“Ow! You were bitten by a dog?”

“A big mean one,” she said. “I was walking down the alley by the grocery store on my way back home, and it attacked me. I’ve never been so scared in my life. It was like a nightmare. It’s all gravel back there, and I wasn’t wearing shoes so I couldn’t run. And then it was biting me, and I fell down, and, and…”

It all kind of spilled out of her in a rush, and then she put her head back in her hands and cried again. It was kind of pitiful, and I should have just left her alone. For some reason, maybe Dr. Lester rubbed off on me over the years, I kept talking to her.

“Is there anything I can do?” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.

“Yes,” she said. “You can hand me my shirt. It’s hooked on the door there, and I feel silly sitting here crying half-naked in front of a stranger.”

“Oh, sure,” I said and stepped fully into the room. I shut the door behind me and handed her the shirt. It was dirty and torn, which seemed to back up her attack story. I noticed that one side of her face, one elbow, and both palms were scratched up too, likely from where she fell on the gravel.

“Thanks,” she said and stood up. That’s when I noticed that she was also good four inches taller than me and bigger boned. She wasn’t heavy at all; she was just a big girl. It only added to her Amazonian proportion when she painfully stretched her torso up to shimmy her shirt back on. When she raised her arms, her bra looked like it was going to explode under the tension.

“Yeah, everybody stares at them,” she said, testily when she caught me looking.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was, but only because it’s very rare that I see someone larger than myself.” I threw my shoulders back and pushed my breasts out to make my point -- so to speak. She seemed to notice me from the neck down for the first time, blinked a couple of times while taking in my curves, and then actually smiled.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve had a bad day.”

And that’s how I met Angel.

*****

It worked out that I finished my physical exam and got my prescription changed over just about the same time that Angel was released to go home. She was having a hard time walking and was still pretty shaken from her dog attack. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I walked home with her and helped to steady her on her feet. We stopped for a little ice cream on the way, and before long we were talking like we actually liked each other and had something to say.

I’ll maybe attribute some of our immediate closeness to the effect that meeting someone new during a really stressful time can make you cling to them. Some of you may have experienced that. It’s like you’ve already made yourself vulnerable to them, so you kind of feel an automatic connection. Angel had just gone through a pretty traumatic attack experience, and I was recently displaced and knew nobody. It kind of set us up to bond.

On the other hand, Angel was just really magnetic. She was hard to not like, and deceptively easy to open up to. She had this wonderful smile that had no trace of being disingenuous, and this really infectious giggle. I’m not known for laughing much, but like I said, she was magnetic.

I found out that Angel lived about a mile off campus in one half of a brick duplex. It was furnished really well for such a small unassuming place, which was odd. I got the immediate impression that her family had money, but it was never spoken. The place had one really big bedroom, a decent sized bathroom, an open kitchen with a table, and a living room. It was just right for one person who likes a lot of space.

We ended up staying up most of the night talking, and I helped her change her bandage a couple of times. I didn’t seem to be able to hold anything back from her, so before too long she knew all about my eating disorder, my dysfunctional life, my wonderful parents, and my obsession with…swimming. I didn’t mention my obsession with the other thing; we didn’t know each other that well!

In turn I found out about her family, her dislike of shoes, her love of cooking and spicy food, etc. We eventually wound our way around to our majors. She was a Junior with a double major in business and finance, and I was just starting a major in mechanical engineering. It then occurred to both of us that it was late and we actually had to start classes the next day. She offered to let me sleep over, but all my clothes and books were back at my dorm, so I regretfully declined. We agreed to meet for lunch the next day though to continue the conversation.

By the next weekend, we had honestly become fast friends. I really liked her, and she helped me to integrate into college life pretty easily. We were both very driven in our studies, so we didn’t get in each other’s way, but it was good to have someone near my own age to talk to. I guess I missed out not really having friends before I left home.

Over the course of the next several weeks, Angel also introduced me to several of her other friends, and I found them mostly to be regular decent people. I was the odd-Freshman out, but nobody seemed to care that much. It honestly felt pretty good to have some people, so to speak. I was experiencing a sense of belonging that I didn’t expect.

Angel was definitely the center of things though. She was so socially at ease and charismatic, that people just gravitated to her. It didn’t hurt that she always seemed to cook too much food and “had to share, so it wouldn’t go to waste”. The result was that at least twice a week, she’d have five or six people over to her duplex for dinner. I was fortunate enough to have a standing invitation and rarely missed a chance to spend time with them all.

Don’t get the idea that I was turning into “Jane College” and becoming a social creature, though. My days were spent knocking my head against my core classes, including the beginning of the very long math sequence that all engineering majors must take. Not many people can speak Calculus (except Angel, she understood that numbers were important), and fewer can speak Particle Physics. I was still quiet and unapproachable most of the time – which was good for my studies and not so good for my social life. Still, I had Angel and the regular dinner crowd to provide me with some human contact. I learned to really appreciate that, especially after the stress of my first mid-terms.

I also still loved swimming and still preferred to be alone to do it. I usually went early in the morning and was even able to find a reliable time to be alone. Even better, the showers were semi private. They had no doors, but there were narrow walls between the shower heads. If I was quiet, I could still masturbate after swimming, even if there was someone else there. There rarely was anyone else, but I got a special little thrill from stroking my pussy to orgasm only a few feet away from an oblivious stranger.

My roommate, Kimberly, was driving me nuts though. She had rushed a sorority, which (though I have nothing against it in principle) meant that there always seemed to be extra girls in our room when I needed to work on homework or just be quiet for a while. I think I frightened them because I would never speak, but I was bitter at the lack of privacy. I mean, c’mon here, I’ve got masturbating to attend to, and I wasn’t getting nearly enough!

I figured that they had gone through my underwear drawer though, because I came back to the room one night, and some things in it had been moved. My sadly unused vibrator was locked in my desk so that was no concern, but Kimberly and the rest of girls all stared at my chest the next time I saw them. I guess they had been curious to see what size I really was.

I told Angel about it and she just laughed. “Get used to it,” she said. “Guys are even worse. They talk to mine.” She was sympathetic about my general (not specific to masturbation) privacy issues though, and really floored me with her next idea.

“You want to move in with me next semester? My place is plenty big enough, and at least we get along.”

“I don’t know,” I said after a moment. “It’s certainly preferable to what I have now, but I’d worry about intruding on your space.”

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “If I hadn’t been thinking about this for a while, I wouldn’t have offered. There is plenty of room to put an extra bed and a dresser in my bedroom. The closet is big enough for me to share, and the living room is an entirely separate private room. You wouldn’t have to hole up in the library at all hours just to get work done.”

“I don’t know if I can afford it…” I said, still looking for the hole in her plan.

“Actually if we split the rent and utilities, even with cable TV, I bet it comes out cheaper for you than staying in the dorm.”

“What about personal privacy?” I asked. I was thinking this might give me a way to resume my favorite pastime, but I disguised it as best I could. “What about if you want to have a guy over?”

“Or if you do?”

“Yeah right..” I replied sarcastically.

Angel frowned, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, but either way it’s no problem. There’s still the living room, and we can work out a system to warn each other if we need some private time.”

“What’s the upside for you?”

“Apart from helping a friend?” Angel flashed her winning smile. “This is my first year out of the dorms, and my parents would feel better about it if I didn’t live alone. They think I’ll be safer if I have someone else around.”

“Hmmm… Do you snore?”

“Not that I know of. You?”

“Nope. Don’t smoke anymore or do drugs either.”

“Walk around naked?”

“Given the opportunity, I might!” I giggled.

Angel looked slightly embarrassed. “We might have to cross that bridge. I don’t wear clothes around the house sometimes.”

“Not to worry,” I told her, still laughing. “You forget that I’m the one with self esteem issues. I’ve also spent a lot of time in a swimsuit and a public locker room shower getting over being modest.”

“Deal then?”

“Okay,” I said, “Let’s estimate some rent and utilities numbers, and I’ll call and ask Mom.”

Mom said it sounded like a good idea and even talked to Angel for a few minutes to “get a feel for the young lady”. Dad actually liked the idea so much that he was willing to send me some money to buy a bed and a dresser and to pay rent enough to move right away. I think he shared Angel’s parents’ opinion that I might be safer, but he also considered that I might not be fitting in well in the dorm. I have to give Dad credit that he’s usually more on top of things than I think he is.

After that we both talked to Angel’s parents and they agreed. They seemed like nice people, and I’d already seen photos of them to go with the voices. Then Angel and I just sat and looked at each other for a minute.

“Hello roommate!” I said and stuck out my hand.

“Welcome friend!” she said and hugged me instead. That was a new thing for me.

*****

Angel and I went shopping the following Friday afternoon and bought a twin bed and a build-it-yourself dresser for me in another friend’s borrowed pickup truck. After that I just gathered up my books and clothes, left Kimberly a note telling her that I was gone, and squared everything away with the housing office. By Friday evening, I was moved.

That first night was seminally interesting. During the building of my build-it-herself dresser , Angel found out that I could swear like a sailor when I’m frustrated enough. That seemed to make her a little uncomfortable, but I apologized (see there are firsts for everything) and everything seemed okay. We ordered a pizza and set up my bed while we were waiting on it to arrive. Then we ate and watched TV until we were bored with it. Now that we had all the time, it seemed like we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Neither one of us wanted to go anywhere, so we just sat around talking until it was late.

Though we were pretty close, Angel and I had never talked in any detail about relationships or sex, but the topic of our “I need privacy” signal came up again. We settled on using Angel’s wooden sauce spoon. If either of us came home and found the spoon on the kitchen table with the handle pointing at the bedroom door, then she would know that the other was inside “getting a taste of something good”.

We laughed about that for a while, and then I took the next step, “How likely is it that I might come home -- I like saying that -- and find you with a guy?”

“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I’ve dated a couple of guys since I’ve been here at school, but I’ve never been alone here with a guy. Of course with you here it might be safe, but as you know I’m not dating anyone right now.”

I just nodded.

“What about you?” she asked, and yawned widely. “Oh, excuse me.”

“Pretty unlikely. I’ve never even had a date.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah -- but don’t make fun of me okay?”

“I never would -- not about that anyway. Why haven’t you tried dating?”

“It’s never come up. I’m not the type of girl that guys want.”

“Are you kidding? Your gorgeous, and you’re smart! And you’ve got those!” she said, and gestured at my chest. “If you got half the attention I do because of mine, you’d never want for a date.”

“Yeah, well until I met you I wasn’t the type of person that other people liked to be around. Remember, I used to have… issues.”

“Well you’re a different person now. Maybe something will happen for you,” Angel said encouragingly. “Have some confidence, and see where it takes you.”

“Maybe,” I said. “It will be all new to me. I’m really a shy person.”

“Stick with me kid. We’ll go far,” Angel said in her best Bogart imitation.

“How far have you been?” I asked tentatively. “You don’t have to say, if you don’t want to. I think you can guess that I haven’t really done anything. Blue streak of fuck-words not withstanding,” I said and pointed at the dresser, “I’m still virginal.”

Angel nodded. “I’ll tell you, but now you have to promise not to make fun of me,” she said seriously.

“Of course.”

“I gave up my virginity in high school, and I’ve been with two other guys that way since then. I thought I loved each of them, but it didn’t turn out that way. Each time something fell apart, and they weren’t willing to stick with it. I wasn’t important enough to them to make them work for it.